STATE

It's the strength and the weakness of a citizen legislature -- many Mississippi lawmakers have other jobs back home. A strength, because it gives them knowledge of particular subjects they make laws on. A weakness, because it can make them look like they're pulling for their own self-interest when they're in Jackson.

One of the ex-prisoners who received a full pardon last year from then-Gov. Haley Barbour was involved in exchange of gunfire that killed another man Thursday night, a northern Mississippi sheriff said.

Mississippi's only abortion clinic missed a Friday deadline to comply with a 2012 state law that requires each of its physicians to get hospital admitting privileges -- a law the governor said he signed with the hopes of shutting the clinic down.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant told several dozen pastors and other abortion opponents Thursday that he supports a bill that would ban the procedure once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. It's similar to a bill that was filed and killed by a Senate chairman last year.

A year ago, even some opponents of charter schools expected a bill to pass. But some majority Republicans balked, killing the bill in the House.
So proponents redoubled their efforts, trying to build support for widening the rules that allow alternative public schools run by outside groups. Now they will try again.

U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo says he voted against funding to pay the Hurricane Sandy flood insurance claims because of the deficit, but as the chief financial officer for the Biloxi Public Housing Authority in 2005, Palazzo asked for federal relief despite the nation's debt.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant is handing control of a state health insurance exchange over to the federal government by trying to block creation of a state-run exchange, Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney told the governor in a letter Friday.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said education dominates his 2013 legislative agenda, from merit pay for teachers to charter schools that will receive public funding but be free of some state regulations.

When state lawmakers return to work Jan. 8, overhauling some aspects of the state's education system is expected to be top priority for the first 90-day session of the year.
Among the more contentious issues will be the re-introduction of charter school legislation in the Senate, a debate senate Republicans are planning to win.

Mississippi schools could lose about $53.9 million in federal education money, according to a report released by the National Education Association, if Congress doesn't stop a package of budget cuts scheduled to take place Jan. 2.